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The
Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar (C-RAM) capability, employed
since 2006 by the U.S. Army's to defend coalition forces in
the Middle East theater is being expanded, under a recent $71
million contract awarded to Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC).
The new award funds continued development and support of the
program.

The system integrates sensors (such as target acquisition and
tracking radars), command and control, and visualization tools
to detect imminent attacks by rockets and mortars, locate the
sources of incoming fire, and issue accurate warning to exposed
units. Simultaneously, the C2 system provides correlated track
data to the intercept system to negate the incoming RAM threat.
Additionally, the C2 system passes Point of Origin and Point
of Impact information on to other systems and sensors, queuing
them and aiding the proper response.

According to Kelley G. Zelickson, vice president and general
manager of Northrop Grumman's Tactical Systems Division, the
quick-response effort have integrated existing systems into
a system-of-systems architecture to quickly deploy additional
capabilities. Future enhancements will include the ability to
detect, track, target
and destroy in-flight rounds in time to meet time-critical
operational warfighter needs.

The program began in $38 million contract awarded in October
2005 to Northrop Grumman, which assisted in the integration,
deployment, and installation of the C-RAM command and control
systems architecture and the integration of sensors, command
and control and warning systems.